Avatar (2010)

You may already know (or suspect) that Brian and I have somewhat divergent film preferences. We saw Avatar together a couple weeks ago and he was nice enough to invite me to write another guest post with my review of the movie, as it's, um, contrary to his. My Avatar review in 140 characters or less? "Meh." But I don't Twitter, so I have some space here to elaborate on that.

As each character was introduced, my internal monologue was "really? Really?" The abrasive military leader, the sassy female pilot, the gawky academic--all were so one-dimensional. (even though we were watching in 3D. Ha.) The plot was heavy-handed and everything was obvious, with lots of superfluous fighting, hunting, and riding dinosaurs/birds. Unobtainium? Really? Couldn't come up with any other name for this...uh...unobtainable mineral? The Na'vi people are basically blue Native Americans wearing Maasai jewelry and riding horses with six legs. The whole thing felt like James Cameron watched the PBS special on Native American history and said "Ok, that's cool. Let's just add some CGI and we'll have a blockbuster." Here's a quote from the PBS website:


"Jackson's [Giovanni Ribisi's] attitude toward Native Americans [Na'vi] was paternalistic and patronizing -- he described them as children in need of guidance and believed the removal policy was beneficial to the Indians [Na'vi]. Most white Americans thought that the United States would never extend beyond the Mississippi [into space/Pandora]. Removal would save Indian [Na'vi] people from the depredations of whites, and would resettle them in an area where they could govern themselves in peace."

See the parallels? Instead of watching Avatar, try watching We Shall Remain http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/.

No blue people, and no glowing forests, but the same basic idea and much more interesting.

Micro Reviews

I'm excited to announce a new addition to Armageddon Blows--micro reviews.  A micro review is just like our normal reviews but smaller, much smaller. 140 characters or less to be exact.  The micro reviews will be hosted by Twitter because...well, it is free and pretty easy to use.


Since we are using Twitter to post reviews we have to follow their rules.  Twitter limits messages, called tweets, to 140 characters because that is the limit for cell phone text messages (aka SMS messages).  Why does a text message size matter, you ask?  Originally, Twitter was a service that allowed people to update a website via text message.  Conversely, you can sign up to receive text messages from a persons page.  This text message stuff still works so if you find yourself without a fancy smart phone, use any cell phone to send updates (ie micro review).


Back to what matters, movies.  There are times around Armageddon Blows office when the staff sees a movie that doesn't warrant a full blog post.  Enter micro reviews.  These bite sized reviews can be cranked out in a few minutes.  There is no reason one couldn't be tapped out from the theater before the credits stop rolling.


As your editor-in-chief, I don't want to limit the fun to AB staff so we are opening this up to anyone with a Twitter account (sorry Facebook people, I'm not sure how to include you).  To get your micro review on Armageddon Blows, add the tag #ablows anywhere in your tweet and it will be found and added to the site.  Why #ablows you ask?  Well because #ab is already being used and #armageddonblows eats up sixteen characters and honestly, I never remember how to spell Armageddon.


We hope the AB community will have fun with this.  Don't feel like it needs to be limited to reviews.  If it has to do with movies--good or bad, we want to hear about it.  For more info on Twitter check out this overview.